What if People Were Paid For Their Data? (economist.com) 101
Advocates of "data as labour" think users should be paid for using online services. An anonymous reader shares a report: Labour, like data, is a resource that is hard to pin down. Workers were not properly compensated for labour for most of human history. Even once people were free to sell their labour, it took decades for wages to reach liveable levels on average. History won't repeat itself, but chances are that it will rhyme, Glen Weyl, an economist at Yale University, predicts in "Radical Markets," a provocative new book he has co-written with Eric Posner of the University of Chicago. He argues that in the age of artificial intelligence, it makes sense to treat data as a form of labour. To understand why, it helps to keep in mind that "artificial intelligence" is something of a misnomer. Messrs Weyl and Posner call it "collective intelligence": most AI algorithms need to be trained using reams of human-generated examples, in a process called machine learning. Unless they know what the right answers (provided by humans) are meant to be, algorithms cannot translate languages, understand speech or recognise objects in images. Data provided by humans can thus be seen as a form of labour which powers AI.
As the data economy grows up, such data work will take many forms. Much of it will be passive, as people engage in all kinds of activities -- liking social-media posts, listening to music, recommending restaurants -- that generate the data needed to power new services. But some people's data work will be more active, as they make decisions (such as labelling images or steering a car through a busy city) that can be used as the basis for training AI systems. Yet whether such data are generated actively or passively, few people will have the time or inclination to keep track of all the information they generate, or estimate its value. Even those who do will lack the bargaining power to get a good deal from AI firms. But the history of labour offers a hint about how things could evolve: because historically, if wages rose to acceptable levels, it was mostly due to unions. Similarly, Mr Weyl expects to see the rise of what he calls "data-labour unions," organisations that serve as gatekeepers of people's data. Like their predecessors, they will negotiate rates, monitor members' data work and ensure the quality of their digital output, for instance by keeping reputation scores. Unions could funnel specialist data work to their members and even organise strikes, for instance by blocking access to exert influence on a company employing its members' data. Similarly, data unions could be conduits channelling members' data contributions, all while tracking them and billing AI firms that benefit from them.
As the data economy grows up, such data work will take many forms. Much of it will be passive, as people engage in all kinds of activities -- liking social-media posts, listening to music, recommending restaurants -- that generate the data needed to power new services. But some people's data work will be more active, as they make decisions (such as labelling images or steering a car through a busy city) that can be used as the basis for training AI systems. Yet whether such data are generated actively or passively, few people will have the time or inclination to keep track of all the information they generate, or estimate its value. Even those who do will lack the bargaining power to get a good deal from AI firms. But the history of labour offers a hint about how things could evolve: because historically, if wages rose to acceptable levels, it was mostly due to unions. Similarly, Mr Weyl expects to see the rise of what he calls "data-labour unions," organisations that serve as gatekeepers of people's data. Like their predecessors, they will negotiate rates, monitor members' data work and ensure the quality of their digital output, for instance by keeping reputation scores. Unions could funnel specialist data work to their members and even organise strikes, for instance by blocking access to exert influence on a company employing its members' data. Similarly, data unions could be conduits channelling members' data contributions, all while tracking them and billing AI firms that benefit from them.
people would just pay the full cost of services (Score:5, Insightful)
If no one can sell any of your data then companies will just raise their prices to cover the full costs of their products and services. Like no more free Strava on the iphone or apple watch. If you want a run/biking tracker you'll have to pay per device. Just like the old days.
Re: people would just pay the full cost of service (Score:5, Insightful)
I fail to see the problem.
This just let's us get back to actually owning the products we paid for one way or the other.
Bonus points if it gets us back to "still works offline."
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they've had driving apps with offline access on the iphone for many years. I've used Navigon. It was $20 for the US map collection and different prices for different regions all over the world. worked great in a national park with no cellular service on an old iphone 4.
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We need to invent a way of paying a few cents at a time for stuff. Until then advertising is the only way to "charge" people small amounts.
Re:people would just pay the full cost of services (Score:4, Informative)
The genie is out of the bottle, and this is just another revenue stream. Much like 'pay TV' that is still full of ads, data monetization is probably here to stay.
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The genie is out of the bottle, and this is just another revenue stream. Much like 'pay TV' that is still full of ads, data monetization is probably here to stay.
Yes. The only thing I wonder is if people can and will put a value on the price they're paying for their "free" services. Like if you could have the same service without the tracking and mining, is that worth something to you. So far I'm thinking "no" at least when it comes to paying, the jury is still out on whether they'd take a slightly less convenient open source alternative but I'm starting to trend towards "no" there as well. Occasionally people pretend-rage when it becomes too obvious but they like t
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That wouldn't change anything. Stuff is priced as what it will sell at, so having all your data sold would be considered part of the price to use a device... or hidden under a EULA.
Tired of subscriptions and data being sucked off? Stop buying stuff that does that.
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The problem, though, is there is almost no other type of stuff out there.
The stuff that is free without sucking your data off and has no ads usually sucks donkey balls.
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Like "go off the grid and live like a hermit"?
Re:people would just pay the full cost of services (Score:4, Insightful)
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What I'm saying is most apps out there use Facebook's or Google's infrastructure for account management. They don't have their own account management infrastructure, so you're screwed anyway.
No Facebook account? Sorry, you can't save your progress in this game. Sorry, you can't aggregate your data in this app. Sorry, you can't use that app at all.
What remains after you've eliminated is generally useless.
Also, try using a smartphone without being logged in to either Apple's or Google's account.
Yeah, I know,
Re:people would just pay the full cost of services (Score:4, Insightful)
What I'm saying is most apps out there use Facebook's or Google's infrastructure for account management. They don't have their own account management infrastructure, so you're screwed anyway.
No Facebook account? Sorry, you can't save your progress in this game. Sorry, you can't aggregate your data in this app. Sorry, you can't use that app at all.
I have yet to play a game the only allowed a facebook account. If I came across then I wouldn't play that game. But this might be due to the fact that I don't play any free games unless they're open source.
What remains after you've eliminated is generally useless.
I seem to have no problem finding games to spend money on. You're looking in the wrong places. I suggest GOG.com or Humble Bundle. The key is to look for the games that cost money up front.
Also, try using a smartphone without being logged in to either Apple's or Google's account.
I've done it. You have to side load any apps but it's nearly as horrible as you might think. It does take a bit of tinkering and some technical know how that is above the average user. Still, you could also just create an empty google account and only tie you phone to it. Yes, you technically have a Google account but there's nothing of real value in it.
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it's nearly as horrible as you might think
Correction: it's not nearly as horrible as you might think.
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I have yet to play a game the only allowed a facebook account. If I came across then I wouldn't play that game. But this might be due to the fact that I don't play any free games unless they're open source.
So... you don't play those games because you don't want to play those games. Great logic, but that doesn't mean they go away. Also, I was talking about mobile games and apps, rather than PC ones.
I seem to have no problem finding games to spend money on. You're looking in the wrong places. I suggest GOG.com or Humble Bundle. The key is to look for the games that cost money up front.
I have spent thousands of EUR on PC games, I wasn't talking about those. I was talking about mobile games, where the situation is grim.
I've done it. You have to side load any apps but it's nearly as horrible as you might think. It does take a bit of tinkering and some technical know how that is above the average user. Still, you could also just create an empty google account and only tie you phone to it. Yes, you technically have a Google account but there's nothing of real value in it.
Which brings us back to the original discussion. Every Google account is empty... at the beginning. Then you add contacts. Then you use Whatsapp. Then you move around and your locati
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Maybe, simply because I've moved on from tinkering with every little thing in my life.
Priorities...
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you can still buy a bike computer that's a dumb device with no GPS or any kind of data retention. the same thing with a lot of other products
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And do nothing useful on it.
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Re:people would just pay the full cost of services (Score:4, Insightful)
First, I don't think the only or necessary consequence of people owning their data is that no one else can use it or make something of value out of it.
Think of it as a raw material that individuals own as they can mineral rights. I can imagine circumstances in which individuals may want to sell (or lease) their data to companies that might sort, aggregate, analyze, qualify or otherwise manipulate it to create some salable information. Just because companies get it "for nothing" now, doesn't mean it has to be that way for companies to make a profit.
Second, if companies want to charge for products or services that are now "free", fine. Let them. Then consumers can decide what such goods and services are really worth to them. They might discover that a lot of them are only worth the price when the price is zero.
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Anecdotal coincidence: I literally just heard of Strava today from an unrelated source and installed it a couple hours ago.
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If no one can sell any of your data then companies will just raise their prices to cover the full costs of their products and services. Like no more free Strava on the iphone or apple watch. If you want a run/biking tracker you'll have to pay per device. Just like the old days.
Hmm... I think you jump into conclusion. If they don't sell/buy data, those companies can still collect data but would be limited to their own product use. Because you use iPhone as an example, it will not change anything. Apple has been collecting and using the data for years. Do you still think that they need to buy more data to develop their watch? The only difference I could think of is that it could be less free apps you can use. However, that doesn't mean we can't live without. They all are for conven
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In these discussions people always forget about the existence of free software.
I don't pay for apps with money, and I don't for them with data either.
Cost recovery versus pursuit of infinite profit (Score:2)
The top problem with your analysis and the main reason it doesn't deserve "insightful" moderation is that the transaction is crooked. We have no idea what the REAL value of our personal information is. The way it works is that the corporate cancers that harvest our private information can make enormous profits in exchange for bangles and trifles.
I think email is a better example than the ones you [4151743] mentioned. We know that the google is making substantial profits, probably even gigantic profits, from
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If you think share price reflects anything about the real value of a company, then you are seriously delusional. The stock market has become a game played among fast computers, each of which is buying shares at insane rates based on some programmed fantasy that some other sucker will buy those shares at a higher price at some moment in the future. There are so many hilarious aspects of the bubble that you can only laugh--and wait for the implosion.
I confess that I own some shares, but only because I'm too l
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When you "assume", you make an "ass" of "u" and "me". Old joke, but I think it's quite relevant here. (The joke also rendered me quite averse to the word "assume".)
Stock prices have NEVER been based on perfect information. There is no perfect information. Stock prices are just a matter of opinion, but at least they used to be the opinions of human beings, and they used to be based on things the companies actually owned and did and were expected to do in the future. The future is another thing we know almost
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"We have no idea what the REAL value of our personal information is."
Shhhh! Don't give it away. The big secret is, all this data is worth nothing. People don't run out and buy things they weren't already going to buy just because they got shown the perfect ad at the perfect time, and when you consider that most of the time you get a semi-related ad for something you're not currently actively in the market for, then the effectiveness of using all this data goes down a huge amount.
Just let them keep giving us
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Well, I agree with you more than the other reply, but I still think you are seriously underestimating the "coerced" element of the freedom equation. People tend to focus on the stick aspect of personal information, the human mistakes that can be used to threaten you, while mostly ignoring the carrots from knowing your interests, tastes, and even your strengths.
Serrendipitously, I was just reading an old "Wise Buying" guide from the BBB. The first substantive chapter is about advertising, and one of the earl
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Be careful what you ask for. If everyone needed to be paid for their data, what would happen to user product reviews like those found on Amazon? Will companies really want to continue a feature that benefits users if they have to pay the users to include it?
Your data and metadata are practically worthless on their own. It only becomes worth anything when it is put together with equivalent data from a large portion of other people, analyzed to gleam some sort of truth (accurately, which is not easy), and
read the EULA facebook is your pipm and freefacebo (Score:2)
read the EULA facebook is your pipm and free facebook is your payout.
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before facebook there was classmates that charged money for contact info and messaging. and some other service that sold something like a yearbook but with recent contact info.
facebook was free and why people chose it
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Before Classmates became spammy money grubbers it was free...
It would be nice (Score:4, Insightful)
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But it's already in place. Many of these services are free just because of the fact they can sell your data.
YouTube was already in place long before they started paying people to create content, and well before YouTube started charging a premium to access certain content.
Point is shit can change. And rather easily.
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But then the buyers of the data never realizes that what they do get is actually tainted data.
Have you ever considered why most shops today seems to all have the same stuff at the same price but never what you look for? That's the result of "Big Data".
And how do we know that what someone sells isn't tainted? Most people that are security aware have minimized their exposure on the web to avoid getting monitored. This is tainting the "Big Data". Then you have the interest of the "Big Data" companies as well -
Doubling down in the wrong direction (Score:1)
Rather than taking it for granted that privacy violations are required to have a viable economy, I'd rather see privacy as the baseline assumption and find new funding/payment models from there. In the short term this would certainly be disruptive for businesses like Facebook, but it's far worse to continue allowing private profits on the social damage of a surveillance economy.
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The problem is that companies are used to running roughshod over privacy laws. Even the GDPR has not been tested. Since they are used to a privacy gravy train, it will take not just laws, but enforcement (fines, raids, C-levels facing prison time) for companies to actually take privacy seriously.
Even with the GDPR, as it stands now, if a CEO finds out that their firm is in trouble, they short their stock, let the EU find the company into the ground, and laugh all the way to the bank.
xkcd (Score:2)
I'm too lazy to scroll through back xkcd to find it, though.
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https://m.xkcd.com/1971/
That wasn't about "data unions" but it was about people not taking the initiative to learn what "personal data" was and what people could do with it. It's one of the weaker comics I've seen (too wordy, too preachy) from that corner, but every set needs some filler.
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It's you property and it has a lot of value which you are not being compensated for, pure and simple. If they want your data bad enough they should be prepared to pay for it.
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Er..."data unions"? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, before my money makes it to me, I'd want someone ELSE siphoning off a cut and then aggregating the cash to be steered toward their interests. Maybe even cutting off the Internet from me for a while to make this or that point.
>> if wages rose to acceptable levels, it was mostly due to unions
I'll be sure to bake my Software Architects Guild Local 1043 another batch of cookies to thank them this year. Thanks for the reminder!
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Don't worry, everyone knows that you got yours.
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Neither do I and it's not hard. All you have to do is research the company you're applying for before accepting the job and see what other software developers have said about it. Glassdoor is helpful for this. You may also be able to reach out to people on LinkedIn who used to work there.
And...? (Score:2)
most AI algorithms need to be trained using reams of human-generated examples, in a process called machine learning. Unless they know what the right answers (provided by humans) are meant to be, algorithms cannot translate languages, understand speech or recognise objects in images.
most humans need to be trained using reams of human-generated examples, in a process called learning. Unless they know what the right answers (provided by humans) are mean to be, humans cannot translate languages, understand speech, or recognise objects in images.
Just like AI, we are at some level trained the same way. We just get MUCH MUCH more sensory information for MUCH MUCH longer.
Supply and demand (Score:3)
As for what they "like" or purport to like, that is equally dubious. Apart from the gap between what people say and what they will actually do, once you start paying people for all the "likes" they give you will find they start liking everything. The data becomes worthless.
The point about placing a value on data, as with labour, misses another basic point. Labour adds value - and that is what people are paid for. Not for the act of working X hours a day, but that the product of their labour increases the value of the goods sold: turning raw material into products, turning services into benefits. Unless data from 7 or 8 billion people can be applied to produce something of value, then it is worthless.
Google rewards app (Score:1)
My data is for rent, not for sale. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't buy my data, but you can rent it via a subscription model.
Nonsensical .... (Score:2)
The fact that A.I. requires human labor doesn't really justify or explain why they'd start paying everyone who contributed to the data that was gathered.
The only people really making a given A.I. project useful are the people already employed and presumably getting well paid for writing the data collection processes, ensuring they're running successfully and making the decisions on which information will be prioritized vs. discarded, as they guide the A.I. to make the decisions they're wanting of it.
It migh
Gee, this sounds familiar (Score:3)
This reminds me of stories I've read in many Slashdot comments. You know, the ones that talk about tech people training their (much lower salaried) replacements. This time the 'replacement' is AI, and it's not just tech workers being replaced, it's just about everyone.
Besides, people are already being 'paid' for much of their data, in the form of services that they don't have to open their wallets for. I'm sure Google, Facebook, and the like, consider those services to be fair and sufficient payment. Judging by the vast number of users who keep using the services and don't kick up a fuss, I'd say the majority of people using those services are in agreement. Or they just don't care, which amounts to the same thing.
Square peg/Round hole (Score:2)
A buddy of mine who idolizes his right wing dad used to do this. He's got a medical condition that requires constant treatment for life. I suggested we ought to have socialized medicine (aka Medicare for All). He was opposed to this. I asked him for his solution for guys like him and he proceeded to lay out this complex scheme where insurance companies would be forced to sell
You are compensated for your data (Score:2)
The implied contract with you and Facebook/Apple/whoever is that for the use of their services, they get to and will collect data related to your use. That could include metadata, content, usage metrics, etc. The more you use, the more you effectively pay. You don't have to use those services, and regardless of some people's option, you can still function in society without those services.
What if I told you (Score:2)
They are (Score:2)
That's pretty much how loyalty cards and chance-to-win surveys work.
How much is data worth? (Score:2)
There are lots of ways to value data. How much does it cost to collect the data? How much can you earn by using it? How much harm can you cause to other people by using it? These values can be very different from each other.
Consider a criminal gang hacking computers to steal information. For each person whose data they steal they have to spend $1, but they can earn $10 using it, and then someone has to spend hours dealing with the consequences of having their data stolen, so figuring a reasonable hourl
Old news (Score:1)
How about just not collecting data? (Score:1)
What's wrong with the "civility model"? Companies offer a service for which they charge and/or show ads. They don't collect data because it's rude and sleazy. Common sense. That strategy worked fine for Google to become a multi-billion-dollar company. Remember when they just had contextual, text-based ads along the side of search results? They changed due to greed, not because the method didn't work. I have zero sympathy for companies saying they can't make enough money without spying. In that case they're
It's about the derived data.. (Score:2)
In the EU this derived
Copyright? (Score:2)